The present invention is directed to a mechanism for processing taped products. Included with the mechanism are a work drive having a friction coupling and a positive coupling, a conditioned atmosphere process apparatus for directing a conditioned atmosphere to the work passing along a product path therethrough, and a controlled product feed apparatus for feeding work to a control station.
Electrical and electronic equipment have experienced substantial increases in complexity and number of components for some period of time. The total output and the variety of output of such equipment have also been increasing. With civilization's ever increasing need for more and more complex electrical and electronic equipment, certain devices and processes have been developed in an effort to increase production and reduce the cost thereof. This is equally true of the hydraulics and pneumatics industries as well. For example, mass production techniques and standardized components have been employed wherever possible. With the employment of such mass production techniques and products, the unit cost of the final product can often be reduced and the number of products reduced can be increased.
In achieving economic production of electrical, electronic, hydraulic and pneumatic control equipment, it has been found advantageous to provide component parts on a tape by lightly bonding the components to the tape. The tape may then be positioned on a mechanism which can provide components one at a time for assembly. However, a great deal of component manipulation must still be accomplished by hand. Such manual work has been required because of the operator's inability to work at a fixed, unvarying rate and because it is often desirable or necessary to individually match specific lines, leads or other elements with certain components positioned on the tape. Thus, a large number of operations remain which are accomplished manually because of the foregoing problems.